I watch a reasonable number of Ring Road vlogs and apart from the fact that there are a load of things that infuriate me (mispronunciation of any and all names, neglect of Þingvellir, non-existent flicking through of guidebook – for crying out loud, the last one I watched knew about “Diamond Beach” but had no idea Jökulsárlón even existed!), there are some very odd ideas about budgets. So let’s talk a bit about actual realistic ways of saving money.
Take a tent
I know this is going to be an unpopular one. A lot of people save money on accommodation by hiring a campervan – often quite a large one. And that’s fine, that’s your decision but the smaller the campervan, the more budget the option. However, even better than a campervan budget-wise is the smallest car you can get your hands on and a tent. Every time I go to Iceland I look at the price of a two-person campervan (you can’t get solo ones; they all have two front seats and space for two in the back) and then I look at the price of something like a Hyundai i10 and the tent wins out. Yeah, the campervan is more comfortable and more convenient and warmer and whatever choice you make is valid for you but if you’re genuinely going for the cheapest option, a tiny car and a tiny tent is your cheapest option.
Go to the right fuel stops
Your car rental company will almost certainly have a deal with one of the chains of fuel stations around Iceland and will probably give you a fob or a card or something that gives you a discount on fuel. Sometimes you’re caught short and just have to go to the nearest one but when you’ve got a choice, make sure you pick the one you’d got a discount for. If you’re on a budget, plan your trip around coming across the next correct one at the right time, or getting fuel earlier than you really need is so you can make it to the next one. The big ones are N1 (red and white, biggest chain, often have an attached shop & roadhouse), Orkan (bright pink), Olís/OB (green and yellow/yellow and green) and Atlantsolia (blue and dark red). Some are more expensive than others but that may not matter so much if you’ve got the discount at the more expensive one – or if there’s only one fuel pump in the next 200 miles.
Visit lesser-known sights
Pretty much all the big sights on the south coast now have paid-for car parks, which was unimaginable when I first started going to Iceland. It was against the spirit of Icelandicness to charge for access to their natural wonders. You’ll pay at Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, Jökulsárlón & “Diamond Beach”, Námafjall/Hverir and Þingvellir for definite. As far as I know, it’s still free to park at both Geyser and Gullfoss. Don’t be tempted to just park on the side of the road – those kinds of tourists are really annoying but there are still plenty of legitimate places to park for free to see amazing things and, to be honest, once you get north of Reykjavik and east of Jökulsárlón, parking generally becomes free again pretty much everywhere.
Stay in hostels and guesthouses
Because Iceland’s tourist industry is huge, it has a correspondingly huge array of accommodation options. You can spend as much as you like in Iceland but you can also save reasonably well. Reykjavik has a lot of hostels, although perhaps they’re not so plentiful outside the capital region – besides, if you’re leaving Reykjavik, you’re going to need transport so look again at that tent! There are also guesthouses, which range from the kind that email you a door code and leave your key at reception to the kind where a motherly soul makes you breakfast and hot chocolate every morning. The longer in advance you can book these, the better – in summer, if you’re just planning to saunter up to the door, you’ll find they’re either sold out or the price has skyrocketed, which is why I started taking a tent in the first time. I didn’t want to have to book everything in advance and lose all the spontaneity I thought I’d gained by hiring a car.
Shop at supermarkets
This feels so obvious I almost don’t need to say it and yet I see people who go to cafes and restaurants for every single meal. I don’t even know where they’re finding half of them when you can drive for so far without seeing anything more than a roadhouse every hour or two. The last video I watched did feature a couple who made regular stops at supermarkets but their attitude towards the sandwiches and pasta eaten in the back of a campervan would put a Labrador off its food. They made it so clear that they felt making their own food was beneath the likes of them. Supermarkets are great, not just for the savings but also because it’s interesting to look at what’s available. I personally like to look at the crisps – Eastern Europe seems to like crab-flavour, Germanic Europe seems to like ketchup etc – but carnivores might appreciate things like the array of lamb, hot dogs and more exotic things (that are interesting to look at but please don’t encourage the industry by actually buying it!) like whale and puffin.
Take the airport bus instead of a taxi
This one really does blow my mind. How much does a taxi cost for the 30-odd miles from Keflavik to the BSI vs one of the many airport bus options? A lot more! I mean, if you want to go really budget, I think you can take the Strætó public city bus but even I would balk at that – it’s by far the cheapest option but it stops 16 times, takes an hour and twenty minutes, several of them don’t even go as far as Reykjavik and there’s no option to take you to the door of your hotel. That’s an extra cost on the airport bus but another thing I think is worth paying for. Your two main airport bus options are the Reykjavik Excursions Flybus which leaves as soon as it’s full and runs more or less 24 hours a day or the Airport Direct bus which used to be Greyline which runs every hour from 10.15am to 9.15pm. I do not love RE so I’d rather take the Airport Direct when I can – because it doesn’t wait until it’s full but goes on a schedule, you’re more likely to get a seat to yourself, which is something I enjoy.
Don’t take the late night flight if you’re planning to hire a car
This is probably my biggest ever Iceland mistake. In the summer of 2022, I came in on the 21:25 flight from Heathrow which landed at Keflavik about 11.40pm with the intention to hire a car in order to drive around the south-west and visit the volcano that was erupting at the time. Unfortunately, the car rental desk closed at 1am and my flight was delayed and in short, between passport control and baggage reclaim, I knew there was no way on earth I was getting to that desk by 1am. And if I did, where could I go? There’s nowhere in the vicinity that’ll take a tired traveller in the small hours of the morning and I didn’t want to be driving to Grindavik and having to pitch my tent in the dark. In the end, the only option left to me was to stay in the airport hotel, which was the most expensive 10 hours to ever happen to me – even more expensive than the 6 hours I spent in an airport hotel inside Heathrow last week. I went over “is it cheaper to take the airport bus to somewhere in Reykjavik tonight and then get the airport bus back in the morning?” but in the end, I just stayed at the Aurora Hotel and have resented it ever since. Don’t book that flight if you’re going to hire a car.
Go to local pools instead of geothermal spas
One of the joys of Iceland for me is the geothermal hot water and yes, the Blue Lagoon is amazing, as are most of the other spas. But if you’re trying to do Iceland on a budget and you don’t want to miss out on that water, go to a local pool. Every settlement with more than about 50 inhabitants seems to have a geothermal pool although I admit that quite a few of them are inside – you can take a look at my swimming pool map here to find the nearest one and whether it’s inside or out (a sun is outside, a house is inside and the colour-coding is mostly for me – yellow means I’ve been there, blue means I haven’t). Almost every pool will have a naturally-heated lane pool plus at least one hot tub – usually more – and probably either a sauna or a steam room and they’re about the price you’d expect for your municipal pool back home. You do have to go through the ritual of The Shower but good news – local pools are often a lot quieter than the expensive ones and if you time it right, you might get to do The Shower alone.
Don’t pay for local Sims/wifi unless you have to
This is really going to depend on where you’re going and where your phone plan is from – despite us “taking back control”, I can still use my UK data at no extra charge in Iceland at the moment so there’s no point in me getting a local sim (if you’re doing the same but you’re inexplicably missing your mobile data, try switching manually to the Síminn network – this was a problem I had in December when my phone automatically connected me to Nova). But you’ll find free wifi at most campsites, restaurants and roadhouses and, in theory, on buses – many’s the time I’ve stood next to a bus and borrowed their wifi and I stood outside a restaurant in the snow in central Reykjavik not two months ago, borrowing their wifi to go through my phone provider’s absolutely useless website & app to figure out why I didn’t have my mobile data and how to get in touch and get them to fix it.
I Am A Polar Bear 